The present invention relates to an electronic apparatus provided with a pivotable support member supporting an electric circuit board.
Among typical electronic apparatuses, a copier, for example, has been requested to reduce its installation space by downsizing of the apparatus body in spite of a continuous steep increase in the number of required electric components including an electric circuit board for electrically controlling the apparatus body with colorization and speeding up. It has been a conventional practice to accommodate such a steep increase in the number of required electric components by collectively disposing such electric components on the rear side of the apparatus body together with electric circuit boards and the like superposed on one another, thereby to meet the space saving request.
For example, a color image forming apparatus of the tandem type has a rear side on which driving means for driving a photoreceptor drum of each image forming unit and other devices, driving means for bringing each photoreceptor drum and an intermediate transfer belt into contact with each other and separating them from each other and driving means for driving a sheet feeding mechanism are placed side by side.
In order to make the outside dimensions of the image forming apparatus compact, electric circuit boards are disposed as stacked on one another, the electric circuit boards including: a low-voltage power board for supplying an electric power to the image forming apparatus; a high-voltage power board for supplying a voltage of several hundred to several thousand volts to be applied for developing a toner image on each photoreceptor drum, for transferring such a toner image from each photoreceptor drum to the intermediate transfer belt, for transferring a toner image from the intermediate transfer belt to a recording sheet, and for a like operation; an I/O board for controlling inputs and outputs of various signals; a control board for performing image information processing; and a like electric circuit board.
In performing maintenance on the image forming apparatus or a like operation, such electric circuit boards have to be removed from the apparatus body sequentially from the control board located at the outermost place on the rear side. This makes the maintenance operation troublesome.
In attempt to eliminate such an inconvenience, an image forming apparatus which allows easy maintenance to be performed thereon has been disclosed including a functional unit, such as a driving unit, on an outer surface of the housing of the image forming apparatus, an openable board support member mounted on the image forming apparatus so as to cover the functional unit, and electric circuit boards accommodated in the board support member (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-215199 for example). With this image forming apparatus, the board support member is opened to expose the functional unit, thereby facilitating the maintenance.
In the patent laid-open publication noted above, wiring comprising wires or harnesses which connects the electric circuit boards to the functional unit of the apparatus body is routed casually.
For this reason, in cases where connector terminals and the like of an electric circuit board accommodated in the board support member are located clear of the pivoting axis of the board support member, the wiring has to be routed by being drawn out of the apparatus body by an extra length in addition to the distance from a predetermined functional unit to an associated connector terminal provided on the electric circuit board in order to make connection to the associated connector terminal. The extra length is a length that is necessary for the board support member to pivot into its open position. Therefore, the total length of the wiring has to be longer than necessary, which is not reasonable.
The board support member according to Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-215199 is shaped rectangular having a horizontal length that is longer than a vertical length thereof and is mounted on the apparatus body by a pivot shaft or a hinge for pivotal movement about a pivoting axis extending in the vertical direction so as to be open and closed relative to the apparatus body.
For this reason, a considerably large space is necessary for the board support member to move pivotally to reach its open position. Usually, substantially no space is provided on the rear side of the apparatus body. Therefore, the amount of opening of the openable support member is relatively small on the side near the pivoting axis. For this reason, the openable support member accommodating the electric circuit boards therein has to be removed from the apparatus body in removing and mounting the functional unit during maintenance.
A feature of the present invention is to provide an electronic apparatus which allows the length of wiring to be shortened while enabling the operability to be improved in performing maintenance on the apparatus body.